Archive for June, 2016

The gym is often an Aspies biggest nightmare. There are always so many people there, so many machines going, and so many distractions. It really is just a matter of time, before something gives an Aspie sensory overload. Whether it’s watching the weights go up and down on the machines or the grunts from the serious weight lifters who are really doing much more weight than they should be doing, in my opinion. If you can’t do it quietly, without all the noise, then you are doing too much weight and you should tone it down a little. I am also trying to get my own exercise here, at the gym, without having to focus on what other people are doing.

Then there are the weight lifters themselves. When the world can feel completely unpredictable to you, because of all the chaos waiting to happen, it can be a scary place. People often don’t follow the rules. I don’t mean the rules that are posted, but, the rules of logical interactions which Aspies are all aware of, but that many other people don’t seem to know of or at least ever follow. For instance, when talking to someone, unless you two are hugging, you should always maintain body space of at least three meters. With all the chaos behind ever corner, weight lifters, these behemoths of men and women who don’t seem to have any fat to them, or cuddly bits, as I like to think of it, are extremely scary looking. You know that those muscles on the weightlifters have absolutely no practical application in today’s modern world and that they are just there to cause pain if they snap. Really, someone should restrain these “athletes” before it gets to this point, and explain to them that they are big enough, and getting any bigger really is an unfriendly, aggressive thing to do. Instead, we have to watch these people out of the corner of our eye at all times, while we try to lift our reasonable amount of weight.

Then there is just the pure number of people at the gym that is threatening. Look, I get that they also need to exercise and are just doing their thing. I understand that, but, as an Aspie I don’t like large crowds at the best of times, unless, it’s from the safety of the stage, and there is a pretty large distance between me and them. There is just so much potential for things to go wrong, when it comes to large groups. There is potential for all of their interactions to cause me sensory-overload or turn into a large mob and do something unreasonable, like keeping American Idol on television for so many years. Without large mobs, Paris Hilton’s music career would not have been a thing. People are infinitely more reasonable as individuals and they’ll assure you that there is nothing to like about her music, but, as soon as they turn into a large group, her music thrives; it is mind-boggling.

That is why I am going to keep to jogging outside, where it is quiet enough to listen to my own thoughts over the roar of traffic.